11 September 2005

down film memory lane

the epix contest has concluded. i wonder who got included in the coffeetable book. wow, how i wish... bigatin judges. neal oshima, bencab, and some other foto fogeys. forgot the names. dapat yata sa pro division ako sumali. hm. pero hindi rin.

just a little before i turn in. my eyes have been spinning na from editing the whooooooole freaking day, save for the time i went out and visited my students' location shooting for their 16mm film project. this group has good chemistry. i hope everything turned out well. next week, i visit the others. i'm worried about the third group, though. most of the slackers seem to be there. i hope they will be able to pull through. hay anu ba to feeling nanay sa istyudeynts! hehe.

i don't get the deal with the department about film. there's no more subsidy of raw stock unlike in our time when we were alloted a 100ft roll of tungsten film each group of three. we had spring-wound bolexes to play with. now, they have to rent cams from kodak and buy a minimum number of raw stock cans... what gives????? instead of making student film life a bliss, kodak's become a burden of sorts. i don't know what transpired from 1995 to 2005. man, times they are a-changin' indeed. and then there's the PIA filmlab closing down. where are they gonna edit their films??? all the darn MOA linkages have been broken... kawawa mga students. they have to spend at least 10k per group per film. good thing i divided them into 5 to lessen the burden. shucks, if this happened to our generation, hindi na siguro nag-film thesis yung mga nag-16mm a decade ago like me, sari dalena, corina millado, don michael perez and fellow conconistas rose barcarlos and aimee compuesto. sino pa ba? teka bat ko ba nilalagay complete names nila? ah, wala lang, trip ko lang. i wonder how they are doing. can't anybody out there repair those darn bolex cams? sayang naman.

sayang. i remember when we first handled film in cinematography class (and they don't even call it cinematography anymore! but that's another issue) way back. excited kami syempre. the sound of the film cam purr, the loading in semi-darkness using loading bags, even the moment i fixed the film gate when a film chip got stuck there (and hech exclaimed: "wow galeng para kang si mang cv!" haha), and how i was amazed at watching my groupmate transform herself into an old woman with the help of eggyolk DIY prosthetics. nakakatuwa. i wanted to contribute my expertise back then (making fake edible blood) but there was no use for blood in our film short so i used that on our directing class video instead. it was actually fun screening our film to my class. how things looked differently back then. philcoa was definitely different; we were able to film the creek there that they covered up now,before citimall was there. and quezon circle was still two-way, with the proper intersection lights being followed,and there were shanties along katipunan balara. basta, kakatuwang visual history ang film.

still, i admire those who pursue their theses in film, like mayo's bro raya. 35mm pa 'ata siya. gutsy. i just hope that kid's early success doesn't go to his head. delikado that way, like some people we know...

blast from the past. i passed by hi-top qave to pick up a few things and i fell in line at the cash register there that used this cash register machine that looks like it's from the 1950s! i swear! alam mo yun, yung parang gamit ni pop tate sa archie comics of my youth, maumbok na ewan... even the typeset of the receipt, parang gutenberg version of the cash register -- ancient! grabe nakakatuwa. it's like when i spotted an ancient turn of the century-ish typewriter sa isang novelty store sa galleria years ago na ka-brand at kamukha ng ginagamit ni virgina woolf. man, i wanted to buy that. bat di ko nga ba binili noon yun? gems like that are rare, like when my film batchmate saw a canon scoopic 16mm cam displayed in a pawnshop for 5k!!! syempre binili nya at ang catch, walang intermittent movement kundi single frame operation lang. good for animation, his hilig, kaya yun ang thesis nya. swerte no. sa vintage pop store sa cubao x, may mga bolex din e at ancient still slrs. kaya lang hindi for sale. kakainis. pangtakam lang pala. kill! kill! >:|

hay, those were the days... now, everything's run according to the digital god. good and bad. the debate continues. sige na nga, good kasi affordable. so kodak should keep up and start slashing prices. sa totoo lang, they'll make a killing pa. i don't know why they can't see that. they always cite the tony gloria example. nubah. oh well, c'est la vie.

ay, kyla video naman. is this the one kaya that sig directed, na 20k budget at ang 15k ay binayad sa hairdresser/make-up artist na bitbit ni kyla? haha. abonado pa. hay, such is the life. i wonder if things will change. ever. the rules are still the same, methinks. hay.

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this site is a repository of things i think about. reflections, thoughts, angsts, musings, observations, philosophies, theories, rants, hypotheses on life and all its aspects and culture and all its nuances.

it is written primarily in Filipino and English, the official languages of my Asian archipelago nation called the Philippines. it is also written in sub-languages of communities which i belong to, primarily metropolitan gayspeak and showbiz dialects.

while my aim is to be formal in this space, attempts fail due to psychological factors that affect my day. hence, i could speak in tongues, discombobulate endlessly, or just let the stream of consciousness flow. hello virgina woolf, ikaw ba 'yan?

‘yun na.

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